Who You Gonna Call?

I'm getting calls from friends asking me for real estate advice. This happened a lot in the past. We even gave free seminars to show people how to do what we did. Back then, I didn't mind touting my valuable words of wisdom because I had worked hard and succeeded. While I'm flattered and everything now, I always ask, "Have you read my blog?" to which they respond, "Yes."

I have to blink hard a few times before I ask why they would be asking me for advice. "Why don't you ask someone who knows what they're doing?" They tell me that my experience is still valuable. OK. So they ask me a question about whether or not they should buy this or that. I say, "No." Hey, better safe than sorry. Actually, my ever-so-humble advice is to "buy and hold" because I think prices will drop more before they correct again. But, then again, I really don't know what I'm talking about.

I use this blog to make people feel a little better about losing money in real estate or business ventures, or even a personal foreclosure. I hope they realize that if they lost less than we did, they must be doing well. Perspective is everything. I'm also trying to analyze what went wrong with my situation and how not to repeat it. If it helps someone else, then great. It's not meant for advice, necessarily. I just want some company when I feel like whining about my financial loss.

My husband and I decided to cut our losses and move on long ago. But every now and then we get twinges of regret. It's not often and it's not for long, but it happens. The other day, he looked at me and said, "You know, we could have paid off our mortgage with the amount of money that we lost." I glanced back and said, "Twice." There are many things we could have done with that moola, especially when it comes to charity. But it was not meant to be.

The financial strain that we were under caused us to be very creative. So we can be thankful for our situation because it brought us where we are today. I promise that a future post will be about the business that we started out of necessity. It's still in it's infancy and so many exciting things are happening that I'd like to wait so that I have something to tell you.

I just wanted to assure you that positive things can happen from overwhelmingly negative experiences. Things may not seem so impossible after all.